


Nothing Gold Can Stay

by alphaenterprise



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, feels everywhere, the russians are badasses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 01:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphaenterprise/pseuds/alphaenterprise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So dawn goes to day, and nothing gold can stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Gold Can Stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chibifukurou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/gifts).



..

It is Pentecost who introduces them to Cherno Alpha, with square shoulders and a spine straighter than a razor’s edge and a presence larger than anything living. He is something else, exuding calm and order, and is not at all intimidated by Sasha’s impassivity nor Aleksis’ height. They join him after less than a minute of climbing into their drivesuits, helmets hitched beneath their arms and steps synced perfectly together.

He watches them take their first look at their Jaeger, patient and calculating, and Sasha’s lips curl into a feline expression of smugness when she spies the emblems scattered across the burnished, gleaming metal in red paint.

“The dominant pilot will be on the right side of the conn pod.” He tells them after they have walked around the great machine three times and mutter in quiet Russian, catching their rapt attention, “There are a variety of ways in which to determine who will take it, but it is not an immediate decision.”

“Sasha will be right.” Aleksis says not a scant moment after the Marshal’s explanation, and if Sasha is at all surprised by this, it does not show on her face. She hums something nonverbal, looking up to Cherno’s conn pod with something unreadable in her eyes.

“Left will be good look for you.” She tells Aleksis, chin inclined and jaw set in an expression that must translate to her husband because he mirrors it almost perfectly.

“It can be changed if it does not fit.” Pentecost says, and meets eyes with the female Russian when she glances his way.

“No,” She shakes her head, and her stance turns prouder than proud when she looks away to instead give a tiny nod to Aleksis, “No, I think it will fit fine.”

**..**

The world becomes green and black, pulsating and intermittent with streaks of blue, and they think of biohazard and radiation and the dangers of Chernobyl that seem so much less in the face of these beasts. They are metal and flesh and circuits and a singular nervous system, firing neurons across leagues and inches and feet, and are paradoxical in their possession of four legs and four arms and four eyes and two spines and two brains and yet not at the same time.

Chernobyl, Chernobyl, they are Chernobyl and radiation and elements passing half-lives and whole lives and metal and sheer power all rolled into one (three), they are Cherno Alpha and Sasha and Aleksis all in a singular instant. Whatever Kaiju that had crawled from the Breach writhed and died, its arms torn from its body and its spine pulled vertebrae by vertebrae from its wretched body. The sea runs blue, incandescent and thick like paste, and it sticks to their joints and their shins and their chest when the ocean’s waves become choppy. Bleeding poison, the body is rent again and again, crushed with an animalistic feeling borne from the blue that ate away at Vladivostok’s shores and curled into the stones of the ocean’s floor.

Aleksis looks up at himself and meets his own gaze through the asymmetric eyes of his drivesuit. Sasha does the same, and their spines shift and their bones hum with too much energy that seems to be hardwired into their entities.

Kaiju snarl and click in the back of their mind, noises of dead creatures past, and rake talons across their amygdala until hours have passed and the sun has set and risen all in the same time period. The cold chews into their pons and they trek and re-trek through Vladivostok’s bitter waters until Cherno has burnt through even the reserves of fuel that have been touched only to drain and refill to avoid it settling. When the lights flicker and the technology that drags their minds into one entity interrupts, the Kaiju contort into yellows and blondes and golden safety pins until they are jerked out of the warmth when the cables to their helmets and spinal columns are disengaged.

Sasha balks, disoriented, and one of her eyes is presenting her with a view that the other is a foot higher than. Her suit is heavy and fits her in the strangest ways, and Aleksis’ mind is a supernova behind her eyelids, an unyielding, solid presence in the place where their drift originates. Her husband pushes their minds together as if trying to reinitiate the drift, muted confusion flitting across her brainspace when it isn’t there.

She grabs onto the plating of his drivesuit ( _theirherhisdrivesuit_ ) and pulls him down with a hand on his cheek ( _theirherhischeek_ ). Kaiju blue smears over his face, glaringly bright in her mind and not-there, and when they kiss, it is hungry and reignites their drift until their thoughts are twining and everything is gold.

**..**

On tradition, they join Gipsy Danger in the hangar with their crew in tow. The Kaidanovskies had attended the Jaeger’s first trial run, had grown attached to the Becket boys, and had appropriately grieved when informed of Yancy’s death. Raleigh had greeted them with more life than they expected after they had gotten settled in the Shatterdome, accepted the hands that were placed on his shoulders and the hushed apologies and blessings that they gave him in their native tongue, and found them playing the role of massive shadows on days where he had the most trouble.

So they attend, not on the floor at Danger’s feet, but on one of the higher overlooks. Easily, their crew follows, for they are as ever-present as air, and Sasha and Aleksis sprawl regally on the railing.

“ _Becket boy will be sad._ ” Aleksis observes in quiet Russian, the metal of his numerous rings tapping a gentle rhythm on the hollow steel that made up the rails. “ _To aggravate Alaska._ ”

“ _Perhaps._ ” Sasha agrees, and Cherno’s core hums ceaselessly behind them in a way that they have learned to draw comfort from.

So they watch and listen, and it does not go unnoticed that Gipsy Danger’s first movements mimic what they were five years ago; the Jaeger’s fist meets her opposing palm just once with a mighty thump before both her arms come up in a stance that is reminiscent of a boxer who is untrained.

The plasma cannon – the right plasma cannon, which makes the warm gold of their minds flicker to worried carmine – begins to whirr and click into its firing position, and Sasha’s lips thin disdainfully. Hushed mutters begin to rise from their tech crew, and on the ground floor, the Wei Tang’s crew and three pilots are shouting in hurried Chinese. Tendo’s voice is broadcasted over the intercom when Danger’s fingers spread and attach into threes, shouting to evacuate, evacuate, evacuate when the clip locks into place and whines higher and higher until it is piercing.

Aleksis stares down the barrel with the same tilt of the head as Sasha, a small inclination, and neither of them look away from the heating elements that are busy clearing the area like scattering, scared rabbits. Even their crew has backed away, crammed into the corner with alternating expressions of concern and exasperation, and shout in aggrieved Russian when the plasma cannon goes silent and Cherno’s pilots turn identical tiny smiles rife with surety to them.

“ _Is strong._ ” Sasha says finally, firmly, and she and Aleksis turn in a single motion to exit with firm, synchronized steps.

 

**..**

 

The Kaiju that climb from the Breach are nothing like the ones that have touched Earth’s surface before, entirely unsimilar to the ones that Sasha and Aleksis have ground into the dirt, and it makes the backs of their necks prickle disturbingly. Like specters have dragged fingers down their spines, they trek through the ocean and their drift hums a color similar to an ominous sunset with the more spines they see curve out of the water’s choppy surface.

_Otachi_ , they decide grimly, the word echoing in their mind as if shouted in a bare, massive room, and latch onto its plated neck with a brutal grip. She screams, a noise akin to metal shredding, and they pummel Cherno Alpha’s fists into her head with fluid brutality until something snaps to send her reeling back.

Crimson Typhoon is there with its thundercloud formation when Otachi turns around, and Sasha and Aleksis watch triumphantly when neon blue blood spills on the ocean’s surface from the beast’s stomach. The triumph morphs into ugly anger and disbelief when Otachi’s tail closes around Typhoon’s unarmoured helm and pulls it off as easily as plucking flowers, and their drift is stained with a black void of fury originating from both of them equally.

“ _Typhoon is down!_ ” Aleksis’ voice is a grounding blessing for the both of them, something that prevents either of the pilots from careening into the drift space and being swept away in emotions instead of the R.A.B.I.T.

“ _Let’s get this bastard._ ” Sasha says loudly, and her anger has never been enough to come tumbling out of her mouth verbally, not ever.

Aleksis rallies behind her, and their drift turns into a writhing crackle of obsidian and toxic yellow, and they are hissing hydraulics while clanging Cherno’s fists together in preparation for grabbing onto Otachi’s already damaged neck.

She anticipates and dodges, quick as lightning, but does not clear the way fast enough and instead gets her lower back caught in the unforgiving metal grip of the Jaeger. Pistons snarl, echoing a war cry, and both Sasha and Aleksis feel a satisfaction in punching Otachi’s tough hide enough times to dislodge a section of her thickened plates.

But woe, they realize, when they are caught unawares and left to stumble when Otachi regains her bearings. A flash of confusion drags behind Sasha’s eyes from Aleksis’ side of the drift when the Kaiju does a gruesome impression of a frog, and too late, too late, too late it is to dodge the corrosive agent that is spat across their conn pod.

“We’ve been hit with some type of acid!” Sasha says through the comm line, and if her accent is thicker because she had a difficult time translating through the blindness of her biting, heated rage, then nobody says anything. The thick hull of their Jaeger melts away like a chalk drawing on a city sidewalk until the metal drips as if water, and the circuitry still works enough to hear Chuck’s answering shout.

Otachi’s massive teeth shred the shoulder of Cherno’s left arm, tearing the limb from their torso, and the world jolts about when something huge latches on to their back.

Through the drift, Aleksis projects a stony calm, and the blackyellowanger fades to white and cold and powdered snowfalls, and not even the seawater that climbs into their lungs can invade the solidarity of the other’s presence.

 

**..**

The snow turns into something akin to sunlight on a day where the houses are especially cold and walking outside chases the chill from toes and fingers and brushes invisible hands over one’s face and hair. It is soothing and perfect, and permeates the air and environment itself, twining and curling and they wake up in slow increments. Bleary are their senses, slow to calibrate, but Sasha knows the slide of conscious in the back of her mind just as Aleksis gravitates to the responding hum in the back of his.

“You both gave us quite a scare.” A familiar voice brings everything into clarity lazily, languidly, as if the owner were turning a dial with all the precision of a craftsman. Stacker Pentecost states wryly, and despite his lack of formal attire, despite the bandages that pushed the change of clothes, the Kaidanovskies find themselves not at all surprised as they sit up and breathe slowly.

“Is all part of our magic.” Aleksis rumbles, the last syllable of ‘magic’ turning hoarse, and they all share a smile that is filled with relief and disbelief and budding hysteria when they look to the side and find the Wei triplets fast asleep but still _alive_.

Pentecost’s steps are punctuated on the hard floor, but Sasha slides her thin hand into Aleksis’ infinitely larger one while being mindful of the cords and tubes that threaded in and out of each of them. He rests their foreheads together with the gentlest tap, setting a mental reminder to thank the staff for putting their beds side by side, and when they kiss, it is soft and it is sunlight and it bleeds yellow like their drift blooms into daisies and daffodils. It is a summer’s day, it is absolution.

It is gold.

**Author's Note:**

> my first try writing the kaidanovskies! i incorporated some of my personal headcanons into this, and altered the events of the film just slightly, so apologies if it's shaky or seems strange for them. it was the best idea i thought of that appealed the most to me, so i ran with it.
> 
> the italics are meant to be them speaking in russian, since i think google translate would only butcher whatever i throw into it, and i think there's like one instance where it's thought, but it should be apparent (i hope!!!!!)
> 
> was originally meant to be modelled after a 5+1 style, but ended up being 4+1 because i like the idea of having five total items instead of six because numbers ;u;
> 
> and, as i avoided listing the premise of each individual happening, i'll put them here because i didn't want to clutter the story! in order, they are: picking the dominant pilot, their eighteen hour drift, viewing gipsy danger's test run, the fight with otachi and leatherback, and finally, waking up (mainly because fuck angst and hell yeah living russians)


End file.
